The BMW Guggenheim Lab
launches its worldwide tour today with the opening of its first mobile
structure in Manhattan's East Village. This public space—part urban
think tank, part gathering space, part community center—offers free
programs and events for visitors to explore the challenges and
opportunities of today's cities. The BMW Guggenheim Lab addresses issues
of contemporary urban life through programs designed to spark curiosity
and interaction, encouraging visitors to participate in the Lab's
research by generating questions, answers, ideas, and dialogue.

Over
the next six years, the BMW Guggenheim Lab will go through three
successive cycles, each with its own theme and specially designed mobile
structure. The first cycle includes New York, Berlin, and a city in
Asia, and will culminate in a special exhibition at the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2013.

The inaugural Lab, located at First Park, Houston at 2nd Avenue,
a New York City Parks property, is open free of charge Wednesdays to
Sundays, from August 3 through October 16. In addition to the Lab
structure itself, the site features a 42-seat cafe, operated by the
Brooklyn-based restaurant Roberta's. Over the run of the lab, more than 100 programs
will address the theme for the BMW Guggenheim Lab's first cycle,
Confronting Comfort, exploring how urban environments can be made more
responsive to people's needs, how a balance can be found between notions
of individual versus collective comfort, and how the urgent need for
environmental and social responsibility can be met. Programs include Urbanology,
a large-scale interactive group game that can be played both on-site
and online, as well as workshops, experiments, discussions, screenings,
and off-site tours. All programs are free and open to the public on a
first-come, first-serve basis. For the full programming schedule, which
will be updated regularly, please visit the BMW Guggenheim Lab website.

The Lab website and blog
offer a global audience a variety of ways to participate in this
multidisciplinary urban project. The blog will discuss activities at the
BMW Guggenheim Lab, and will also feature posts by notable guest
writers and interviews with the BMW Guggenheim Lab's collaborators.

Join the conversation on Twitter with @BMWGuggLab and use hashtag #BGLab.